Aesop Rock postpones January dates, announces February dates to make-up for previously postponed dates, the cycle continues on

Aesop Rock is a man with poor luck, at least as of late. First, his excellent 2012 record Skelethon (TMT Review) on Rhymesayers didn’t get quite the attention it deserves. Go listen to Skelethon. Second, his East Coast dates last fall were postponed due to Hurricane Sandy. Hardly the worst thing to come from that storm, but a bad thing nonetheless. Now, his West Coast dates this month have to be postponed as well, due to the rapper suffering a broken rib in a recent accident. The shows, which featured Aesop Rock performing with Rob Sonic and DJ Big Wiz and a supporting slot from Busdriver, will be rescheduled for later in the year. All ticketholders should contact their respective venue for information on a refund.

“As one tour is postponed, another’s rescheduled dates loom on the horizon” — Plato or some other old guy. Remember how, roughly five sentences ago, I mentioned those postponed dates from last fall? Well, those dates have been rescheduled. Aesop Rock, assumedly with a recovered rib, will be going on tour through the Northeast and Midwest this February. Those tickets are on sale now. If you are distraught about the West Coast cancellations and have to see Aesop Rock in the next two months, you could always buy a ticket for one of those shows and then relocate to the East Coast. NOTE: please do not drastically alter your life on my suggestion, I take no responsibility for your terrible decisions.

NEWSFLASH: art-rap/indie-rock/confessional mainstays WHY? now live in Cincinnati. In actuality, this isn’t news; a quick search reveals that it’s been public knowledge since at least last fall. It is, however, news to me. WHY? are now based out of Yoni Wolf’s hometown of Cincinnati, not Berkeley or Oakland or wherever else in California that you or I or anyone might have thought they were based.

What does this mean for you, the consumer? Well, WHY? are going on tour this Winter and it begins… IN CINCINNATI. After leaving Cincinnati (where they live), the band will wind around much of the United States through February and March, eventually ending at Austin for SXSW. Accompanying them on this trip will be some like-minded friends, particularly Astronautalis, Baths, Dream Tiger, and Sarah Winters. Not sure if any of those acts live in Cincinnati, but I’ll keep you posted.

I know you may have missed this in your daily perusal of CBS’s website, but apparently there’s been a a thing going on there for like the past six days called “The Gig of a Lifetime” that promises to give “aspiring musicians across the country the chance to perform in front of a live audience during GRAMMY Live, three days of live coverage and events leading up to Music’s Biggest Night.” Yeah, totally! THIS is who won last year, and OBVIOUSLY it changed all of our fucking lives so radically that we can’t even remember it happening.

But yo, this year, we just wanted to give some of you a quick heads-up that one of the candidates this year is actually Lil B! And because we weren’t paying any attention to CBS or the Grammys, THERE’S ONLY A DAY LEFT TO VOTE FOR HIM. Voting takes place on some kind of future-y Facebook app thing, after which, WHEN he gets through the “Pacific Region” prelim, he’ll advance to the final round, which runs from January 17 -24. His obvious victory will be announced on January 29, and after that, we can all watch the part of the Grammys where he’s granted “a live performance in front of an audience and webcast to fans around the globe” when they air on February 10 and bathe in the sheer ridiculousness of him being up there.

For a complete list of who’s performing at this year’s Grammys, go fuck yourself.

You remember Pink, right? No, not the American pop singer who contributed to the undoubtedly Auto-tuned bastardization of “Lady Marmalade,” the compilation from British producer/DJ Kieran Hebden a.k.a. Four Tet, released last year. Six out of the eight tracks on that album consist of previously released singles, and the album itself was announced about a month and half prior to its release, via Hebden’s Twitter page last July.

On Monday, serving as a sort of companion piece to Pink, Hebden technically announced, again via Twitter, the nigh-immediate release of 0181, a new LP consisting entirely of previously unreleased material recorded between 1997 and 2001. Listen to it for free below, or if you’re feeling particularly patient, wait around for the vinyl version, reportedly “coming soon.” The material on 0181 predates Four Tet’s groundbreaking Pause, so consider it a slightly less fleshed-out version of that album, certainly not without its own, rather pretty moments.

Blues singer Precious Bussey Bryant, who grew up in a family of musicians and honed her craft at country get-togethers, died Saturday at The Medical Center in Columbus. She was 71.

“She was always cheerful,” said Zola Bussey Goodwin, her sister and a member of the Bussey Sisters before Bryant found a niche playing the guitar and singing the blues.

[…]

Some of the popular sounds from Bryant include “Black Rat,” “I Can’t Stand To See You Go,” “You can Have My Husband But Please Don’t Mess With My Man,” and a version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Hey fellas. I missed this the other day, but Rolling Stonerecently reported that “Love Me Do,” the very first single by Frank Ocean’s favorite band, The Beatles, has technically entered into the public domain in Europe!

Yes, thanks to the fact that Europe’s current copyright law estimates the lifespan of human beings at 35 years because of all the horrific wars that took place there in the 20th century, the copyrights for recorded music are set to expire after 50 years. Ergo, since we all totally know off the top of our heads that “Love Me Do” (along with its lesser-known B-side tribute to American air pressure measurements, “P.S.I. Love You”) was released all the way back in 1962, that would mean that… yes, say it with me now, “Europeans can theoretically use that song for whatever goofy purpose they want as of January 1, 2013!”

And boy, are they ever! A company called Digital Remasterings has already taken advantage of the fact and included “Love Me Do” on an early Beatles compilation that it just released; and the classical reissue label Pristine Classical released it as a “remastered single,” but only because they wanted to protest the “trouble the extended copyright will cause in its work reissuing old symphonic recordings,” which sounds like the most boring protest ever. So far, it seems that Ringo Starr has resisted his urge to record new drums on top of the song and re-releasing it, but if I was him, you can bet your ass that’s what I’d be doing.

Unfortunately, though, even though I’m out of quips, there’s more to the story than that. A “move is underway” to extend recording copyrights in ye olde European Union to a more robust 70 years (it’s currently set at 95 years in the US, if you were wondering), with the new law including a pretty unassailably logical “use it or lose it clause,” which means that rights-holders (which pretty much just refers to record labels in the 60s) for recordings released before 1963 would have to keep making them available for public consumption for the copyright to remain in effect. But if/when they pass, these laws won’t go into effect until November. So MOVE YOUR ASS, Ringo! I know you read this website.